ROCKFORD —Winnebago County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen sent out a response today to Tuesday's story about the purchase of the former Hawk's Nest restaurant.The county paid $950,000 to purchase the property that is owned by a limited liability corporation managed by former Sheriff Don Gasparini, attorney Paul Nicolosi and Scandroli Construction owner Carl Scandroli.In Tuesday's story, the county stands by the decision because officials say the cost will be cheaper than continuing to lease parking space. Christiansen's response provides a look at how they made that calculation.Read his response below:"Good Morning,I would like to clarify some information regarding Winnebago County's recent parking issues.The county's only interest in purchasing the property on Church and Chestnut was to increase available downtown employee parking. We were told as recently as seven months ago that the city was going to purchase this same property to build a three story parking structure that would stretch from Chestnut to Green Street. At that time, their plan was to demolish the existing Concourse parking deck, as two of its floors had been shut down (and remain shut down) due to structural concerns. We occupied approximately 400 stalls in the Concourse, so the closing of the two top levels created chaos for our employees, jurors and other visitors.In making this decision, the county researched income projections and cost savings. The city plans to raise its parking fees to $60 per stall, per month beginning January 2014. $60 per month times the additional 72 county stalls comes to $4,200 per month or $50,406 per year that the county will save in parking fees annually. We can also generate revenue by charging parking fees during BMO Harris Bank Center events. Estimating at $7 per stall, multiplied times the 72 stalls and the approximate annual number of BMO events (80) totals a yearly income of $40,320.The BMO parking income, coupled with the cost savings of terminating the County's employee parking lease payments, totals $90,726, which more than offsets the $80,000 per year bond payment and will produce a $10,000 positive cash flow immediately. 15 years from now, once the debt service has been completed, the cost will reduce to maintenance only.The appraisal that the county received for this property and improvements totaled $950,000; approximately $750k applied to the property and the other $200k was for the improvements. A recent downtown parking project of similar size, located just north of the BMO Harris Bank Center, was completed for $300,000. When the county compared the improvement costs of each property, it was clear that the estimate provided was not only extremely competitive, but would also speed up the process, so as to be completed this construction season, versus next spring. Again, parking prices will go up in January.Best Regards,Scott"